- The economic plan plans to attract $29 billion in investments.
- The GDP growth target has been envisaged at 6% till the financial year 2028-29.
- “Uraan Pakistan” must focus on export-led growth, says Ahsan Iqbal.
ISLAMABAD: The government led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, through its National Economic Transformation Plan, aims to achieve ambitious economic goals, including doubling GDP growth and halving poverty over a period of five years, News reported Saturday.
The economic plan plans to attract $29 billion in planned investments under the supervision of the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), including $10 billion from the UAE, $5 billion from Saudi Arabia, 2 billion dollars from Qatar, $2 billion from Azerbaijan and $10 billion from Kuwait.
It also provides a roadmap for implementation until 2029, when ministries and provinces will prepare their annual targets so that sectoral plans are also implemented.
Quarterly monitoring of key objectives would be carried out through the National Economic Transformation Unit (NETU). Deadlines would be considered for each sectoral plan and the Prime Minister would be informed on a quarterly basis.
The GDP growth target has been envisaged at 6% of GDP till FY 2028-29, from a base case scenario of 2.5% in 2023-24; per capita income in dollars is expected to increase from $1,680 to $2,405.
Investment will increase from 13.1% to 17% of GDP, while inflation will be kept in single digits at 6.2% and poverty reduced to 12% from the current level of 21.4% over a period of five years.
The plan also envisages GDP growth reaching the $1 trillion mark by 2035, with the growth rate reaching 9.8% in the same financial year. However, the ‘Pakistan Uraan’ does not explicitly illustrate anything about the exchange rate, but sources said it was assumed that the rupee-dollar parity would remain stable.
Asked about the assumption of a stable exchange rate, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal replied that ‘Uraan Pakistan’ would focus on export-led growth as in the past the growth rate has seen declines. boom-bust cycles, mainly due to greater dependence on imports. -led growth.
He said all provinces signed the ‘Uraan Pakistan’ document as it aimed to make Pakistan the economic tiger of Asia.
Addressing a press conference, Iqbal said it was economic terrorism to call for banning Pakistan from sending remittances abroad, but Pakistan has been sending more remittances over the past few years. recent months. He also called on expatriates to send more funds through official banking channels.
For exports, he said the government would focus on agriculture, industry, IT, service sector, mining and blue economy, and exports could reach $60 billion. He said imports from China stood at $2.7 trillion, while Pakistan’s share stood at just $3 billion, which could be increased to $50-100 billion.
Chinese importers, he said, offered him during a recent visit to order meat imports from Pakistan worth $1 billion, but this could cause prices to spiral in Pakistan. It was therefore necessary to increase exportable surpluses to ensure higher and sustainable growth.
Regarding the internet slowdown, the minister said the firewall was installed to combat the challenges of cybersecurity and digital terrorism.
He said IT exports achieved 34% growth. There are technical problems, but they do not hinder the growth of IT services, he added.